Arax Lures $1.5B Upstate NY Firm from Wells Fargo

You tin find archetypal nonfiction present WealthManagement. Subscribe to our escaped regular WealthManagement newsletters.

Arax Advisory Services is buying a $1.5 cardinal RIA that is 1 of the largest practices successful New York’s Hudson Valley successful a determination that volition bolster Arax’s beingness successful the Northeast.

The Oak Group was founded successful 2003 by Ryan Peek and Gary Ben-Exra and is located successful Poughkeepsie, N.Y., with the full squad totaling implicit 60 years of manufacture experience. The radical is leaving Wells Fargo to articulation Arax Advisory, a RIA subsidiary of the $41 cardinal Arax Investment Partners.

According to Arax CEO Haig Ariyan, the Oak Group was “defined by its relationship-based approach,” with Ariyan affirming that “their values straight align with (Arax’s) imaginativeness and strategical maturation plan.”

The Oak Group marks Arax’s 2nd Poughkeepsie-area acquisition successful 2026. In precocious March, Arax bought Omni Financial Advisory Group. The steadfast was founded by Gregory Bayer, who ran the signifier with his son, Braedon and his daughter, Reilly; the squad was affiliated with Cetera earlier moving to Arax, according to SEC records.

Arax Investment Partners is backed by backstage equity steadfast RedBird Capital Partners, which has investments crossed fiscal services, but is besides known for stakes successful sports and media entities, including the Boston Red Sox and A.C. Milan. Arax Advisory Services is simply a conjugation of autarkic firms moving with institutions, high-net-worth families and athletes.

In the past year, Arax has been scooping up galore $1 billion-plus RIAs; past year, it acquired Chesterfield, Mo.-based Summit Wealth Strategies, with $1 cardinal successful assets, arsenic good as Schechter Investment Advisors, based successful the Detroit suburbs. Last January, it acquired $1 cardinal RIA Cedrus Financial in Littleton, Colo.

In February, Arax acquired GFP Private Wealth, a Cleveland-based steadfast with $1.5 cardinal successful AUM. GFP was rebranded from Gries Financial past twelvemonth and was antecedently owned by 4100 Group Financial Services, the wealthiness vertical for The 4100 Group, which is itself backed by Delta Dental of Michigan.

In an interrogation with Wealth Management earlier this year, Ariyan said the steadfast would beryllium leaning into recruiting W-2 worker teams looking to permission nationalist platforms. He said helium saw an accidental to bring successful W-2 advisors who are funny successful transitioning from operating similar “franchises” to starting their ain 1099 RIAs, and that helium did not spot the firm’s woody travel slowing down.

 “We’ve present established ourselves arsenic a precise credible spouse for fiscal advisors who privation to acquisition independency arsenic a spouse successful a boutique,” Ariyan said.